The only box Lance had was the small carved one Julen had found after the battle with the Qiph…the very same battle where the refetti had first appeared. Lance’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t a shandy, but perhaps it was something similar, a man transformed by Qiph magic.
It would explain how the Qiph assassin had vanished so thoroughly after jumping out Sara’s window. Lance had even healed the cursed refetti later.
Lance had a strong desire to snap the refetti’s neck, but the emotion was pushed aside when his mother said abruptly, “You won’t change my mind.”
They were once more talking about the main issue. “You can’t execute her,” he said.
“She may not be guilty, but she’s still the Child of Peace. Her father attacked us. Her life is forfeit. That is the law.”
“The Pact only works if the Primus loves the Child of Peace,” Lance said forcefully. “Sara’s father cares less for her than for a slave. I want to see the bastard punished, too, but killing Sara won’t hurt him.”
“You don’t know that,” his mother said coolly. “The blue devil may well have promised to save her life. Primus Remillus probably never meant to risk her at all.”
“Anyone who calls on blue devils is so steeped in evil, they’re unlikely to scruple over a daughter,” Lance argued. She had to see that he was right. Sara didn’t deserve to die for her father’s sins.
“It doesn’t matter,” his mother said with finality. “The law must be followed or the next Primus will think we’re bluffing. Kandrith will be threatened at every turn. Is that what you want?”
It wasn’t. Lance’s jaw clenched. “Why the farce of a trial if you meant to kill her either way?”
His mother hesitated, then said abruptly, “I hoped that she was guilty. I wanted you to feel…less regret.”
Regret? The thought of Sara dying made him feel like a mule had kicked him in the chest. How could she have come to mean so much to him in only a few weeks time?
“Mother, please don’t do this,” he gritted out, but the proud set of her shoulders told him she would not relent.
* * *
The Protector stood up. “Friends,” she said strongly, “today is a blue day.”
Sara looked up dully, one hand still in the refetti’s fur. Blue day?
“Blue, not only because of the death of my husband, but because the Republic of Temboria murdered him by foulest treachery.”
Angry murmurs arose. Close to sixty people thronged the room now. Sara hadn’t noticed them enter, drowned in grief. Instinct brought her to her feet.
“An act of war has been committed, and it is merely the first one. I have spoken to the Kandrith Seer.” The Protector pointed to the pale-eyed man in silver. “Cadwallader tells me the Republic’s legions will attack our citizens sometime today. Preparations must be made for war,” she continued, dark eyes full of fire.
Lance slipped over to Sara’s side and took her hand, squeezing hard enough to bruise.
A river of dread flowed into Sara as if their joined hands had opened up a connection. She knew what was coming next.
“But first,” the Protector said, “the Primus must pay the penalty for breaking the peace.” She looked straight at Sara.
Sara moved to stand before the throne, taking a deep breath. If she was to live through this she must sound calm and reasonable. “You intend to execute me.”
“Yes,” the Protector said.
“My father doesn’t love me.” Sara fought down a slight quaver at the raw admission. “My death will not hurt him, but it will kill me.” The words sounded ludicrous—of course her death would kill her—but the right words wouldn’t come. Her throat felt tight.
“Seventy years ago our two countries made a pact,” the Protector said. “Not for the first time, that pact has been broken. There must be consequences. If I allow the Child of Peace to live, there will be no peace again.”
Sara inclined her head to show that she understood the point. “May I speak to you in private?”
In answer, the Protector stalked forward. Lance tried to move away, but Sara caught his hand. She hadn’t meant he should go.
The Protector’s head only reached Sara’s chin, but she gave off the energy of bottled lightning.
“There is a middle way,” Sara said softly. “Order my execution, but do not carry it out. Tell my father, tell all of the Republic, that I am dead. I will take oath before a Listener to never leave Kandrith or communicate with the Republic again. The Pact will stand.”
Lance’s head lifted in hope, but the Protector’s expression grew flinty. “The Protector of Kandrith does not lie.”
“You don’t have to lie, just don’t deny it,” Sara spoke with forced calm.
“No.”
Your pride isn’t worth my life, Sara wanted to scream. Had she sounded so self-righteous when she told Lance why she couldn’t free Felicia? Sara struggled to think of a more convincing argument, but white fog seemed to blanket her mind.
The moment passed. The Protector raised her hand, about to give the order—
“No,” Lance said harshly. “You don’t have the authority to order Sara’s execution. Father is dead, and your authority came from him.”
His mother took a step back as if he’d struck her, but swiftly recovered. “I doubt that the next Kandrith will be any more lenient, but you are right. Cadwallader! Who is the next Kandrith?”
The pale-eyed man in silver robes—Gray is the color of Tomorrow—stepped forward. He beamed as if delighted to be asked. “Your daughter Wenda will be the next Kandrith.”
Consternation. A buzz of talk rose. Sara caught the gist of it; Wenda was in the Republic, standing as the Child of Peace. How could she be the next Kandrith?
“Praise the Goddess.” Lance expelled a pent-up breath. “I thought…I thought she might already be dead.”
“Ah.” Sara nodded in understanding. “Since my father never had any intention of keeping the Pact, he could have killed Wenda upon her arrival in Temborium. No. I doubt he’ll kill her in retaliation, even if I’m executed.”
Lance’s head came up sharply. “Why not?”
“If the existence of the Child of Peace were publicly known, he would have to kill her to ‘avenge’ me. But since it isn’t, he’ll keep Wenda prisoner until he finds some advantage in her death—or life.” Sara had watched her father play the political game, and now she knew he was even more ruthless than she’d thought. “He’ll use her as a hostage.”
The Protector’s face hardened like clay fired in a kiln. “I will not surrender.”
Sara suppressed a sigh. Had the woman no political acumen at all? “That may be, but as long he thinks he can wring something from you, he won’t kill her.”
“Then there’s still time,” Lance said. “I can rescue her.”
“No,” the Protector said harshly. “It’s too dangerous. Without the title Child of Peace to protect you, you’ll be taken as an escaped slave long before you reach Temborium.”
Sara straightened, hope infusing her. “Not if he travels with me. Lady Sarathena Remillus and an anonymous slave will be able to move unhindered.” At least until her father found out she still lived. “Let me help.” Spare my life.
“Help?” The Protector snorted. “You’d betray him the moment you crossed the border.”
“I wouldn’t,” Sara denied hotly.
The Protector opened her mouth, but was distracted when a stick-thin older woman ran into the room, her hands in the air, face frantic.
“Just heard…my uncle—new Farspeaker. Farm under attack… He says…” she gasped for breath while everyone hung on tenterhooks “…Republican soldiers climbed…over Saint Davvyd.”
“Thank you, Gwenn.” The Protector touched the woman’s bony shoulder. “Tell the kitchens to prepare. Donal—”
The blond man nodded, already on his way to the door. “I’ll send out runners with the word for every able-bodied man to head for the Mover.”
The Protector walked with him, giving more orders, but not before giving a sharp nod to Sara’s two guards.
Sara appealed to Lance. “I wouldn’t betray you. You know that, don’t you?”
Lance studied her. “I don’t know—and neither do you. Think for a moment, Sara. Right now you may want revenge on your father, but how will you feel once you are back among your own people? Can you really change loyalties so quickly?”
Sara heard herself laugh, a low, bitter sound. “Your loyalty may be to the whole of your country, but mine… I gave all my loyalty to my father. To House Remillus.”
It was hard to explain now why building her House’s power and prominence had seemed such a worthy goal. Lance had given his life to healing people, had lived among strangers as the Child of Peace so that his country could remain free from slavery. His heart was so much bigger than hers, Sara felt shriveled in comparison. Sara hadn’t the right to give her loyalty to Kandrith, but she could strive for higher than personal gain. She could declare herself on the side of peace and work to prevent war and bloodshed. She could save Lance’s sister from being her father’s pawn.
Lance was still watching her, waiting for her to work through her thoughts.
“I never told you why I came to Kandrith,” Sara said abruptly. “Why I agreed to be my father’s spy.”
He shook his head.
“I came to Kandrith to keep my family safe and to avert a bloodbath, maybe even a war.” She explained about the two hundred people slain by magic on Lord Favonius’s estate. “Despite the presence of a group of Qiph warriors, my father convinced me that the King of Slaves was responsible and told me that we had no magic to fight yours. That we would soon be at war with the Qiph, leaving the Republic vulnerable to further magical attacks.”
Lance’s brow furrowed. “The Goddess would never lend her power to such a thing.”
Sara shrugged. “I don’t even know if there was a massacre at Lord Favonius’s.” Her father’s every word was now shaded with doubt, and the only proof she had was the Favonius deathboat. “But he intends to conquer Kandrith and re-enslave you. And that’s wrong.”
She paused a moment to marshal her thoughts. “I always thought being a slave was a matter of bad luck, and that it was simply the way of the world for nobles to own slaves. But here in Kandrith you truly have no high caste, and all it has cost you are a few luxuries.
“I thought that since I happened to be highborn all I could do was be kind to those in my care. But you and Felicia and Rochelle have taught me that’s not enough. Nobody should have to rely on someone else’s whim for protection, or be treated like a child with all your decisions made for you.”
Sara stumbled to a halt. In the Republic, women were viewed as children. When she’d fought her father for independence he’d laid a massive load of guilt on her shoulders so that she would do as he wished. She looked up and found Lance watching her with pride in his eyes.
“I would be happy to have your help freeing my sister,” he said. “My mother will need more convincing.” He gestured with his chin. “Here she comes now.”
Both Donal and the Protector were approaching with identical grim expressions.
Sara spied the old man and his wife on her left and raised her voice. “Listener, hear me! I came to your country to avert a bloodbath. I want Kandrith to remain free and for there to be peace between our countries. My father—” her voice broke, “—my father has fallen to evil. I want to help stop him.”
“All truth,” the Listener declared.
Lance turned to his mother. “I’ll have a better chance of saving Wenda with her help.”
“I can get him into the capital,” Sara told Lance’s mother, then forced herself to wait. Surely the Protector would see the sense in letting Sara go?
The Protector’s lips pressed together. She turned to Cadwallader, who was fortuitously close to hand. Was that anticipation part of a seer’s power? Sara wondered.
“Wenda will be the next Kandrith. Trying to remember how she gets out of the Republic gives me headaches—it keeps changing. I do remember what happens to the Child of Peace.” Cadwallader looked sad.
The Protector bowed her head. “I pray that you have foreseen correctly, that my daughter will return to us and take the oath. But until that time, I am still charged with protecting Kandrith. I will not be the one to break the Pact. Bors, Brendan.” At her gesture, Sara’s two black-bearded guards grabbed her arms and started dragging her toward the large stone block in one corner of the room.
They meant to kill her.
Shock kept her still for an instant. Her gaze met Lance’s. Wouldn’t he help her? But he watched hopelessly.
The wildness inside her snapped its chain. Sara stepped on Bors’s foot and elbowed the younger man, Brendan, in the mouth, making it bleed. She fought like a racha. Both men cursed, but neither let go. “I thought this one was supposed to be a lady,” Brendan muttered.
Sara fought in desperate silence, twisting and kicking. She didn’t care that she was putting on a show like a common fishwife. The pride that might have let her go to her death with dignity depended on her last name, Remillus, on her father. And he had betrayed her.
“Give over,” Brendan muttered as if she were a child being difficult over some small matter. Sara threw all her weight backward, breaking free, but only for a few seconds. Taking firmer grips, Brendan and Bors dragged her up to the black basalt block and forced her head down.
“Hold her,” Bors said.
“Can I break her arm?” Brendan growled, but he kept her head down. Sara kicked him one more time in the thigh—she wished viciously that it had been his groin instead—before Bors locked manacles around her wrists.
The chill of stone on her cheek felt like the hand of Mek. “Bas, God of Miracles,” she prayed. “Save me. Loma—” No, it seemed wrong to pray to Lance’s Goddess.
Sara could only raise her head a few inches from the block; strands of hair hung in her face. Where was Lance? How could he abandon her?
Red robes approached in her peripheral vision, but the feet were too small to be Lance’s. It was the Protector.
Sara clamped her lips together, refusing to beg.
“If you have a last request, speak it.” The Protector sounded uncomfortable, stiff. “But be warned, I won’t brook a delay.”
No twenty course last meal of peppered songbird tongues and roast giraffe then. Sara closed her eyes and tried to think over the blood rushing through her ears. Should she ask that Felicia be given her dresses and jewelry? No, Lance would see to it that Felicia received her few possessions and that her refetti was cared for. There was no need to ask.
Should she ask for wine then, to wet her dust-dry throat? Or for her ashes to be thrown in the Vaga River? Both seemed equally useless.
The Protector tapped her foot. Beyond the woman, Sara could see that Lance’s face was white. With anguish? She wanted to think so, but it could’ve been fatigue or grief.
Suddenly, Sara knew what her last request would be.
Before I die, I want to know that someone loves me, that someone will mourn me.
“I wish to choose my executioner,” Sara said.
The Protector raised her eyebrows. “You think I’m too squeamish to swing the axe? I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Not you. Lance.”
She didn’t believe he would do it. He couldn’t kill her. She remembered how tenderly he’d held her while she cried over her mother’s death, how worried he’d been over her headache. Surely he must care for her, just a little?
If he refused, then Sara could meet her fate with a little dignity. She looked to Lance in hope.
The Protector leaned close, her face red with fury. “My son wears the Brown. It’s wrong to ask this of him. Withdraw your request.”
“Or what?” Sara asked. “What can you offer me, or threaten me with, when I am already condemned?”
The Protector’s lips tightened. “I’m asking you t
o show common human decency—but I suppose that’s beyond someone like you.”
Sara kept her voice low. “Enough lies. You’re not executing me because of the law, you’re killing me for revenge. You hate me for contributing to your husband’s death—and for what I was born. If you truly wish to spare your son this ordeal, let me live.” She waited. “I thought not. Who lacks decency now?”
The Protector straightened. “Your request is denied.”
“No, Mother,” Lance said, his face set like stone. “I will do it.”
Sara felt her heart crack.
Frantically, she tried to bind it back together. Lance believed in the Pact, the death of one innocent. That’s why he’d agreed to do it, but once it came down to the moment, he wouldn’t be able to go through with it.
The Protector took down a silver axe from the wall, then paused. “You don’t have to do this thing.”
“Give me the axe, Mother.”
Scowling, she handed it over. The axe was almost as tall as a man, but Lance took it in one hand, his face stoic. The curved blade gleamed.
Sara clenched her teeth on a wave of nausea.
When she lifted her head again, Lance stood beside her, the axe head resting by his foot. He put a hand on the back of her neck, brushing her hair out of the way. Was there tenderness in his touch? An apology? Did she imagine that his hand shook slightly?
“Keep still.”
Obediently, Sara turned her head to one side and laid her cheek on the basalt block. Lance raised the axe.
And still she could not relinquish all hope, her thoughts scurrying in a dozen different directions like frightened mice. Lance would refuse at the last instant—Lance would bring the axe down on her manacles and free her—he would threaten to turn the weapon on Brendan—
The axe whistled through the air—
And cleaved down on Sara’s neck.
Chapter Eighteen
Sara’s head toppled face-first into the basket, bumping nose and forehead. Pain and blood filled her mouth and ran from her nostrils. Somebody was screaming, “Get out! All of you, out!” but it wasn’t her.
Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) Page 30
